


stuck on the bridge between us

by cynical_optimist



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: 6 + 1, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, M/M, gratuitous use of sneaky sun metaphors, some Ben-bashing, these two stupid boys stupidly in love giving me feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5088452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or</p><p> </p><p> six times balthazar jones played for peter donaldson and one time he didn’t have to</p>
            </blockquote>





	stuck on the bridge between us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [niuniujiaojiao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niuniujiaojiao/gifts).



> alternatively titled “peter tries to get balth to talk about his feelings and fails miserably, on the most part”
> 
> This was for the absolutely glorious [niuniunjiaojiao](http://www.niuniunjiaojiao.tumblr.com/), in return for the gorgeous icons she made me but also because she's just a generally amazing person. I hope I did your prompt justice, lovely!
> 
> Also kudos to [douchenuts](http://www.douchenuts.tumblr.com/) for being my sounding board and willing to edit before I decided I didn't want to deal with ridiculous time zones.
> 
> (there is some use of "Pedro" in this fic due to it also being set in nmtd)
> 
> Enjoy! x
> 
>  
> 
> Title from Troye Sivan's Talk Me Down

 

**i.**

 

The first time Balthazar Jones meets Pedro Donaldson, he is sitting under a tree next to the soccer field, plucking out a song on his ukulele. It is an unremarkable day, sun shining on the football field, most students taking advantage of the aircon inside. Balthazar doesn’t blame them. It’s ridiculously hot, sweat trickling down the back of his neck, and for once he’s foregone his usual flannels for a t-shirt. It doesn’t really help.

 

The shouts on the field grow closer, and he sighs, squinting down at the strings. Even the tree doesn’t provide quite enough shade. He plays some notes, then a few chords, then strings them together. It’s a song he’s known since he was eight, but it’s always nice to revisit it. He’s so focused on the song that he doesn’t notice the shouts drawing even closer. It’s not until an object flies past his ear, bouncing off the tree behind him, that he realises the team have migrated to just a few metres away. He starts, flinching away from the soccer ball now lying innocently on the grass next to him.

 

One of the players runs up to him, breathing heavily. “I’m so sorry, oh my god,” he says as Balthazar lifts his head in shock. “One of Claud’s passes went wide and I couldn’t intercept it in time.”

 

“Nah, it’s okay,” Balthazar says, fingers stilling on the strings. His heart pounds but the immediate shock is beginning to wear off. “It didn’t hit me, so.”

 

“Still,” the player says earnestly, shifting on his feet. “It almost did. I’m really sorry.”

 

“Really, it’s cool,” Balthazar smiles, and his fingers tap at the strings of the ukulele. The player looks down at it, and he feels oddly self-conscious. He’s been playing since he was four years old and he wanted to know how to make the pretty sounds his mother danced to, but it’s not often that anyone outside his family actually notices.

 

The player looks up at him again, grins. “I’m Pedro Donaldson,” he greets, running a hand through his awful mullet.

 

Balthazar sets down his instrument and extends a hand, squinting up at him. “Balthazar Jones.”

 

Pedro moves closer, and shakes his hand, his shadow mercifully blocking the sun. “What are you playing?”

 

“Um, _You Are My Sunshine_ ,” he says, picking the ukulele back up and plucking out a few notes. “Cause, you know, the heat.”

 

Pedro laughs. “I like it.”

 

“Hey, Pedro!” one of the players calls. “Can we get back to the game?”

 

“Coming, Ben!” Pedro sighs, grabbing the ball from where it had rolled next to Balthazar. “It was nice to meet you, Balthazar Jones.”

 

“Likewise, Pedro Donaldson,” Balthazar says.

 

“I’ll see you around,” Pedro calls before running off, because he is a twelve year old boy, and twelve year olds make that kind of promise with ease. Balthazar returns to his song, but the encounter runs on repeat in his mind all day.

 

They do not become friends that day, but later, when they are paired together for an English project, Pedro turns around in his seat and asks if he was the boy playing his ukulele next to the soccer field that day, and Balthazar grins and nods. It is not the beginning, but it is a start.

 

**ii.**

 

Balthazar had always expected his first crush to be accompanied by fireworks, intense emotion, music swelling to a dramatic climax while his heart melts into putty. That is what the songs say, after all-- songs that speak of connections so close they are practically telepathic, love that lasts eons.

 

It’s not like that. It is in the middle of a conversation, a sudden realisation in halfway through a sentence.

 

“Did you hear about that new movie?” Pedro asks him, flopping down next to him without so much of a greeting. Balthazar doesn’t stop playing, trying to find lyrics to fit the chords he’s strung together. “The action one.”

 

Balthazar chuckles. “You might have be more specific, you know.”

 

Pedro sighs, throwing an arm over his eyes. “You know. The one with the guns and the space and stuff.”

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he agrees. “That really narrows it down.”

 

Pedro lifts his arms, glaring at him. “No one believes me when I tell them how mean you are,” he complains. “It’s always ‘Balthazar is so sweet and kind and he wrote me a song once.’”

 

Balth looks down at the strings of his guitar, not stopping playing. “I don’t usually write songs for people,” he says. “Only those that are really close to me.”

 

“Will you write me a song?” Pedro asks.

 

“I’m not that great,” Balth evades. He plays another chord, needing his hands to stay busy while his mind runs in every direction.

 

“What?” Pedro sits up indignantly, flipping his slightly-longer-than-dress-code hair out of his eyes. “You’re the best musician in year ten, Balthy, probably the whole school.”

 

Balthazar’s heart speeds up a tad at the compliment, cheeks warming in the afternoon sun. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

 

“No problem, bro. Just telling the truth.” Pedro lies back down. “What are you playing, anyway?”

 

He plays another few chords before answering. “Just a little something I’ve been working on.”

 

“A song for me?” Pedro says, squinting at him. “You should write me an ode, honestly.”

 

Balthazar laughs. “Nah, a music assignment.”

 

“Disappointed,” sighs Pedro. “Now, about that movie.”

 

“Go with Ben or Claudio,” he suggests. “They’re into action movies, aren’t they?”

 

“Ben is off at some convention and Claudio has homework,” Pedro complains. “Besides, they’re boring to watch with. I want to watch it with you.”

 

“I don’t--” Balthazar says, and Pedro looks at him, wide-eyed, and _oh_. “I don’t know,” he finishes, once he realises the silence has lasted a little too long. He looks back down at his guitar, playing a little more earnestly. It’s almost disappointing-- the only music playing is his own, and the fireworks he had dreamt of would never show up in the afternoon sun. For a first crush, after fifteen years, he had expected a little more. These thoughts, however, are far overshadowed by the sudden swooping of his stomach when Pedro rolls over and pouts at him.

 

“Please?” he begs.

 

Balthazar sighs. “Yeah, okay,” he agrees.

 

He despises the movie, and Pedro bumps shoulders with him and claims it is “not hipster enough” for his taste, and the warmth where their arms touch sets his cheeks on fire.

 

iii.

 

Balthazar doesn’t quite know what to feel, after Hero’s party. He is furious and disappointed and there’s this gaping hole just above his diaphragm that feels like a bullet wound and aches when he thinks. He spends hours in his room, and the rest of his time at Hero’s, teaching her how to play the ukulele. He finishes his assignment on the Arab-Israeli conflict and helps Ursula collect Hero’s homework. He finds an old poem and sets it to music because there has to be something else he can do for Hero, and his own mind is far too jumbled to create anything resembling comforting. It feels a lot like penance, but the act wasn’t his, and the true perpetrators are unapologetic as the night of the incident.

 

A few hours before he is to film Sigh Not So, his phone chimes.

 

**From: Pedro**

Can we hang out today?

 

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. His fingers hover over the screen.

 

**From: Pedro**

I want to apologise

 

**From: Pedro**

Can I call you?

 

Balthazar’s seen Pedro’s upload to Ben’s channel, couldn’t keep himself from watching it the first time it appeared. He remembers the bags under his bloodshot eyes, the way his hair had stuck up in every direction, the distress obvious in every syllable.

 

**To: Pedro**

Okay.

 

His phone rings a moment later, a distinctive tone that Pedro had set as a joke in year twelve that he had never changed. He picks up.

 

“ _Balth_ ,” Pedro says, and it comes out more like a breath. “ _I didn’t think you’d actually pick up_.”

 

“I did,” he replies, keeping his words short because he doesn’t know what might come out otherwise.

 

“ _I just wanted to apologise-- what I did was inexcusable, and I-- I can’t express just how sorry I am, Balth_.”

 

“Is it really me you should be apologising to, though?” Balthazar asks him, and it is so cold that the ice burns his heart. He hates himself, just a little, for the quick intake of breath that follows.

 

“ _It is_ ,” Pedro insists. “ _I need to apologise to Hero, but I know that I hurt you, and I know that there are a million things we need to sort out and I just-- can we do this in person_?”

 

Balthazar takes a shaky breath, then lets it out slowly. “I-I’m filming a song for Hero, with Ursula,” he says. “You can come watch, if you want?”

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Pedro agrees, relief tangible through the phone. “ _Yeah, that sounds great_.”

 

Pedro arrives a few hours later, while Ursula is setting up the camera, and Balthazar nods at him from where he’s sitting on his bed, going over the song one last time. He sits at his desk, without a word, and Balthazar can’t help but be reminded of the hours they have spent studying together. It stings, more than a little, to be in such a different situation.

 

Ursula nods at him, and he starts playing, and he watches Pedro’s face change. It is a song for Hero, yes, but it is also for himself, for his quiet pain that he has been trying to ignore and drown it, for whatever it is between them that pulls them together and pushes them apart in the same action. It is a song for Pedro, for the wrong that he has done and the shame he must feel. It is angry and sorrowful and painful, and it tells Pedro what he needs to say in words that are not his own.

 

They talk afterwards, about Pedro’s guilt and Hero’s pain and Balthazar’s disappointment, but they step delicately around the root of the disappointment, the implications, the reason that Pedro went to him first. It is not the first time they have danced this dance, growing closer and further and never nearing what has been brewing between them for months or years.

 

When the video is uploaded, Pedro writes the description. “Genuine as always,” it says, and Balthazar can see through the three simple words that, maybe, just maybe, what he was trying to say was received after all.

 

**iv.**

 

Balthazar knows that Ben and Peter are only trying to cheer him up. It’s nice of them but he’s not sad, not really. He’s just stressed. Missing home--missing everyone there-- might factor into it a little, but not much. He just needs to work on his assignments.

 

Instead, he plays one tune on ten different instruments, and tries to figure out how to fit a guitar into the bath.

 

“Maybe if we sit further to the side?” Peter suggests, and they try that, and it works. Balthazar strums the strings, playing the chords through, and Peter joins him the second time through.

 

“Are you even in shot, though?” Balthazar asks, and Peter shrugs.

 

“It’s you who’s supposed to be talking to the camera,” he says.

 

Balthazar’s fingers pluck at the strings. “You know that doesn’t actually help, right? Talking to a camera.” He knows Ben’s opinion of it, that throwing his personal information onto the internet for everyone to see helps, but he’s always found music to be a better medium.

 

“Something has to,” Peter says. “Talking to a camera, or talking to humans. That’s why I’m here, so you can talk to a human.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Balthazar sighs, and finds himself playing the riff of Sigh Not So. He stops when Peter tenses beside him. “Sorry,” he says.

 

“Not something you need to apologise for, bro,” Peter replies. “I love hearing you play.”

 

“Thanks, man.”

 

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Peter asks after a moment of silence. “First year of Messina High.”

 

“It was ridiculously hot, that day,” Balthazar says. “I don’t understand how you were playing soccer.”

 

“I was dedicated, okay?” Peter defends himself. “I was a very dedicated player.”

 

“Sure, sure.”

 

“Whatever,” Peter laughs. “You were playing your ukulele, weren’t you?”

 

“Yeah,” Balthazar replies, every detail of that day stuck in his mind, colours blending like a painting.

 

“ _You Are My Sunshine_ , wasn’t it?” Peter asks, and Balthazar wonders just how firmly the day is entrenched in his mind, too. “Could you play that? Can you play that on a guitar?”

 

“I can,” Balthazar says, and begins to play it. Neither of them sing along, despite both knowing the words, and Balthazar hopes what he is trying to say comes across.

 

I’ve loved you for years, he says, with a series of notes. I just want you to be with me, he shouts with a chord. Why do you never understand?, he asks with a gentle strum. I love you, I love you, I love you, is woven through every bar of the song.

 

“That was great,” Peter says when the last chord rings out. Balthazar carefully places the guitar back outside of the bath with the other instruments and settles back into place next to Peter. He’s warm where they touch, and Balthazar wants to stay like that forever. He waits for something else from Peter, anything else. Instead, silence greets him and fills the spaces between them, empty spaces that are supposed to be filled with joy and hope and love. It is not a happy silence.

 

**v.**

 

Balthazar and Peter sing _Stay_ , and it feels like, maybe, something could happen. Their entire relationship is a mess of almost and not quite, aborted movements and forgotten sentences. It is a conversations that never happened. It is one step forward and twelve steps back, tumbling down the staircase of never has and never will. Balthazar never knows what to say to him, not when it matters. So he sings, instead, but, in recent times, that has been working less and less. It’s as if there is a wall between between them, invisible but very present, and he doesn’t know how to breach it.

 

So he writes _Stay_ , and Peter offers to sing it with him, and he hopes that it is enough. He pays more attention to the song that he does to the singer, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he doesn’t. Something stupid, probably.

 

They finish the song, and he leans the guitar against the bed, and when he turns back, Peter is staring at him. Balthazar lets himself stare back.

 

“There’s that look again,” Peter says, and Balthazar hears himself reply as if through a glass. “That look of potential.”

 

They lean in before Balthazar even hears the words properly, and their lips are just a centimetre from touching when they process. _Potential_. _Potential_ , like a painting by a three year old, like someone Peter meets at a bar, never to meet again. _Potential_ , like this has not been building between them for over a year. _Potential_ , like he has not been in love with him for even longer than that.

 

“Potential?” he asks him, drawing away, and he wants to say _I have been in love with you for years and you think I have potential?_ He thinks of all the words unsaid between them, all the times he has tried to communicate and failed. This is not how the songs go. This is not a moment of telepathic communication, hearts and minds aligned.

 

They argue, and they haven’t argued sober, not properly, since Hero’s party. He hates it, hates the telltale tightening of his throat, the twisting of his heart around his lungs. So he leaves, because he can’t listen to what Peter is saying, because he doesn’t understand why doesn’t he understand.

 

One step closer and twenty steps back. He doesn’t know how to fix it.

 

**vi.**

 

Balthazar doesn’t know how to be angry, not anymore. All his ire has left him, and only the dregs of sorrow are left. He feels half-empty, worn out, like a rag that’s been wrung out one too many times.

 

Paige calls, too buried in assignments to make it out of her flat, and she and Chelsey stay on the line while he tries his hardest not to cry. He sees the video the moment it is uploaded, and he watches it over and over again, unable to stop himself. He can see every moment in vivid detail, every one of his movements belying his affections. Paige and Chelsey stay on the line until he falls asleep that night, despite Paige’s terrible phone plan, and he’s sure they can hear Peter arguing with Ben and Freddie in the background.

 

Rosa arrives on the second day, with her own travel-worn ukulele and compassion under the rage in her eyes. She swears loudly and profusely at Ben as she walks into the flat and grabs his hand from where he’s sitting on the couch, dragging him into his room without so much as an explanation. It falls when Ben follows, camera in hand.

 

“You’re an asshole,” Rosa informs the taller flatmate, swearing at him again before Balthazar calms her down. He doesn’t want to hear any more fighting, no matter how much Ben has hurt him. She sings the song and he cries a little, and she hugs him properly before leaving.

 

The third night finds him at his keyboard, fingers resting lightly on the keys, not playing anything. He hears a knock at the door and turns around. It’s Peter.

 

“Hey,” Peter says. They haven’t spoken beyond the cursory _morning_ , and _coffee?_ , and _yes thanks_ , since Ben announced their punishment, but he’s seen Peter’s eyes following him around the flat.

 

“Hey,” Balthazar replies. “Come in, if you want.”

 

Peter does, leaning against Balthazar’s desk. “I wanted to come and see if you were alright,” he explains. “I would have before, but I didn’t know if it was welcome.”

 

“Yeah, thanks,” Balthazar says. “Are you alright, though?”

 

Peter shrugs. “Not the first time I’ve had personal information uploaded to the internet at the hands of Ben,” he says, and his voice is light but his words are sharp. “Look, I just wanted to apologise--”

 

“You don’t have to apologise.”

 

“Yeah, maybe not.” The silence stretches between them again, like it has in so many of their conversations recently. He presses down on the keys, and it seems as though the instrument is playing of it’s own accord. _Ode._

 

Peter’s hands are suddenly over his, stopping him, and he looks up.

 

“What?” he asks.

 

“You know you need to actually talk to me, sometime,” Peter says. “This can’t just be a guessing game.”

 

That, Balthazar realises, is what this has been from the beginning. From Peter trying to figure out what song he was playing, to not even listening to each other, not when it mattered most, it has been a game of reading into each other’s actions and words and coming to conclusions before they were done, dancing delicately around the truth even when it stood glaring at them.

 

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, any one of the countless words that have gone unspoken between them for years. _I love you_ , sits first on his tongue, followed by _you hurt me_ and _I hurt you_ , and _I’m sorry_.

 

Freddie pokes her head in the door. “Dinner,” she announces, giving both of them a suspicious look, and Peter’s hands retreat as if they’ve been burned.

 

“We can talk somewhere else?” Peter suggests, as Balthazar turns his keyboard off. “Somewhere not at the flat?”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Balthazar agrees. “Tomorrow, after class?”

 

Peter reaches out and grabs his hand for a moment, twisting their fingers together. They have to go to dinner soon, and a million sentences sit unspoken between them, but, in that moment, it is almost enough.

 

\+ **i.**

 

They decide to sit on a bench on campus, armed with Boyet’s coffee and sunglasses, in plain view in case Benedick decides to interrogate them.

 

“So,” Peter says, turning to him. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

 

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees, and he feels vulnerable without an instrument to shield him. He takes another sip of his coffee instead.

 

“Do you want to start or should I?” Peter asks, and Balthazar shrugs. Peter laughs, only half-humorously. “Since when did our conversations become so stilted?”

 

“Uh, I can start,” Balthazar says. “If we’re just going to be saying stuff that we need to.”

 

“Okay,” Peter says, and Balthazar wishes he could see his eyes.

 

Balthazar taps on his leg, wishing he had an instrument. Feelings have always been easier with instruments. But that’s the point of this, isn’t it? No instruments, no ambiguity. Just feelings and thoughts and actual sentences. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” he admits. “Crushed on you since at least year ten, probably earlier.”

 

Peter nods. “I can’t say I’ve been in love with you for that long,” he says. “I have liked you for at least a year, though. I don’t know how long I’ve loved you, romantically--I realised I did while we were filming _Stay_.”

 

Balthazar shifts, and Peter grabs his hand, just like he had the night before. “So why did you say I had ‘potential’?” he asks him, the mildest of the replies that he can think of.

 

Peter huffs a laugh. “I was thinking of New Beginning,” he answers. “You know, ‘potentially, this could be a new beginning’? I thought I was being smart, references to past songs and all that.”

 

“I thought you wanted a casual relationship,” Balthazar confesses. “I’m not-- I don’t do casual. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just not for me, you know?”

 

“I didn’t,” Peter says. “I was talking about holding hands and being with someone, and I--” he lifts their hands a little. “I really just wanted that with you. I was trying to see if you wanted that.”

 

Balthazar laughs, then. “We are pretty shocking at this, aren’t we?”

 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “We are. But at least we’re talking, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They fall silent, but the space between them is a little fuller. After what seems like eons or maybe just a second, and both their voices are starting to scratch, they walk back to the flat, hand in hand.

 

“I love you,” Peter tells him, before they go inside. “I’m not going to kiss you now, because of the trouble that got us in last time, but I’d really like to take you on a proper date.”

 

It doesn’t matter to Balth, not really. What matters is the words that hang, released and shared, between them, the feeling of Peter’s hand in his. “I love you too,” Balth says.

 

They stop holding hands before they enter the flat, but it doesn’t matter, not really, because they are a secret they can keep hidden between them, known and seen and acknowledged and celebrated by the two of them. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but it is a start, and it is beautiful.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Balthazar Jones is my smol melodramatic elf child and he must be protected.
> 
> Hope this was up to par, Crystal! xx


End file.
